Chickpea Lettuce Wraps

These CHICKPEA LETTUCE WRAPS are a dream come true for me. Lettuce wraps are one of my favorite things to order out. Their flavor is amazing. Plus you have the warmth from the filling, the crunch from the lettuce and the juice that almost always runs down to your elbow as you try to eat it. I HAD to try to create a meatless version. I mean. How could I not?

I like to make my filling pretty SPICY. So if you are not into that sort of thing you can easily tone it down by adding less sriracha. We have these with either romaine lettuce or butter lettuce because they hold the filling so well. My favorite though is to use romaine. It has a crispy, refreshing crunch that cuts into the heat from the filling. A beautiful pairing. You could sub in iceberg lettuce as well.

The ingredients aren’t too complicated. I use chickpeas and walnuts for the meat part of the filling. You can use canned or home-cooked chickpeas.

The walnuts are also straight forward. However, I think they taste better after they have been soaked and dehydrated. This process takes all the bitterness out of the walnut. I buy my walnuts in bulk and soak them overnight-night and then dehydrate them. This way they are ready to go whenever I want to use some.  It seems like a lot of work but it’s mostly hands-off. This step is 100% not necessary but trust me when I say it is worth it. 

If walnuts aren’t your thing, or you don’t have them on hand you can easily leave them out. The texture won’t be the same but it will still be delicious!

I also like to add water chestnuts, green onions, regular onion,  and shredded carrots. I make it without the carrots sometimes and it is still delicious. I like the carrots though because they add flavor and a little more moisture. The hardest part about cutting out meat for me is making up for the loss of moisture in recipes. Beans tend to be on the dry side. So I try to help them out where I can. 

To make the chickpea lettuce wraps start by mixing your sauce ingredients together. Set the sauce aside while you prepare the other ingredients. 

In a food processor, pulse your onion and garlic into a coarse chop. Dump the mixture into a heated pan and saute on medium heat until fragrant and translucent. You can also chop them with a knife but you are going to use the food processor anyway for the filling. Might as well keep things simple right?

While the onion and garlic are sauteing, shred your carrot in the food processor and add to the pan.

Next, pulse the nuts in the food processor until you reach a coarse, ground meat-like consistency. You can pulse the chickpeas like I did here but it is easy to turn them into mush. You can also keep the chickpeas whole in the final recipe. Or try mashing them roughly with a fork for a more meat like consistency.

Once your onion, garlic, and carrot mixture is ready, stir two-thirds of your sauce into the pan and warm through.

Then dump in your chickpeas and walnuts. Pulse the water chestnuts in the food processor one or two times, or chop roughly with a knife. You want the pieces to be pretty big or you will lose their crunchiness in the filling. Add the water chestnuts to your filling and you are good to go!

My food processor feels so loved whenever I make this recipe!

Heat your remaining sauce through and serve on the side, along with some chopped green onions, and sesame seeds.

I like to serve these chickpea lettuce wraps with some rice and call it a day! A good day at that.